Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Quoted: José Esteban Munoz on queerness and punk rock

Punk made my own suburban quotidian existence radical and experimental -- so experimental that I could imagine and eventually act on queer desires. Punk rock style may look apocalyptic, yet its temporality is nonetheless futuristic, letting young punks imagine a time and a place where their dislikes are not toxic. -- Jose Esteban Munoz from Cruising Utopia

Queer theory is patchworks of jargon-infused, post-structuralist gobbledygook, but I go back to Munoz's Cruising Utopia every few months or so. I would have liked to have seen a larger exploration of the intersection between queerness and punk, though punk as a genre hasn't exactly been immune to homophobia. Still, for a certain kind of kid, feeling alienated, it was a way out, a way to redefine oneself without cowering to social mores.